Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: thegreenmonk on July 25, 2008, 05:05:17 am
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Hello, all
I finally have some money to buy a new setup, the problem is I have no idea what to go for. I do a fair amount of CADing, but mainly play games or use word etc. Mainly just need a handle on whether to go AMD/Intel or Dual or Quad core.
Cheers
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it might be expensive but Nvidia's Quadro card is the best for CADing, but i do not recommand it because of the price. if your looking for computer games though, i would say ATI has the best speeds however generally more unreliable then an nvidia card within the graphics. my 3850hd agp is already playing in on freespace 2 quiet a lot but not on other games, so bad card or incompatibilities, if incompatibilities it would imply fs2o is not fully compatible for all pcs.
the Pheonom or Quad core's are getting fastest and faster, these days you can find 14 ghz cpu's but i would imagine you need a top range mobo with high tech cooling solutions, couple that with 2x 1gb ati or nivida cards with a X-fi champion or higher and you probably have one of the best rigs, because of the power requirements try find a 1000w psu and make sure it's a good one.
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Is getting Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme a good idea?
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its a very good idea, getting a core 2 quad is a better idea :D
also if i was doing alot of cad, go with a quadro card instead of a geforce.
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Last time I checked, the FireGL 8650 pwned the Quadro 5500. At 500$ less.
14 ghz cpu's
First things first. The CPU speed is not found by adding the cores. A quad core at 3 Ghz is not 12 Ghz, it is 4 separate processors, each running at 3 Ghz.
The best choice right now is the Q9450, and the FireGL 8650.
How much are you willing to spend?
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lol so be it. 14 ghz, split between 4 cores.
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That would imply that you could increase and decrease the frequency of each core up to 14 GHz, so no.
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Exactly. 3.5 Ghz, on each of 4 cores.
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If you're primarily interested in games, get a standard gamer card. They're much cheaper than the professional cards and still do a reasonably good job with 3D modeling programs. Actually, I'm not sure if the current 4800 and GTX 200 lines even have workstation versions yet.
A quad core is not very useful in most games, but it will be more so with CAD programs. The Q9450 would be your best choice.
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Whatever you do, try not to get an Intel chipset. I have one on my MacBook and it makes thrusters look like razors cutting the back of their parent ships... :wtf:
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amd cores i have never tried for 7 years, because it never told me the actual of speed on the cpu. it was also a fateful day for me, that cpu just exploded and caused a huge fire which burnt down my parents house and i had no choice but to move into Jerusalem because the council wouldn't allow me to live outside the city limits. ive never gone back to amd since that day. strange thing was the analysts said that the cpu wasn't fully constructed, which i though was strange considering amd is a good company.
that was a one off, dont let this put you off from buying amd cores.
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:wtf:
I'm not sure what you mean by "the actual speed of the CPU" basically the only way to tell is through benchmarks. Also, typically, if a CPU blows it does so with a small puff of smoke, not a destructive fire.
I don't have much expirience with high end cores; but every modern (using post 1995 parts) computer I've build (4 out of 5 are still running) have used AMD cores. I haven't had any trouble with the CPUs... graphics cards, memory, and hard drives, yes, CPU, not yet.
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Whatever you do, try not to get an Intel chipset. I have one on my MacBook and it makes thrusters look like razors cutting the back of their parent ships... :wtf:
That's an onboard GPU, which he will not get. It's impossible to get removable Intel GPUs. And that is a problem with the game engine, the thusters cut through ships on any card.
:wtf:
if a CPU blows it does so with a small puff of smoke, not a destructive fire.
move into Jerusalem because the council wouldn't allow me to live outside the city limits
I think he was exaggerating.
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Whatever you do, try not to get an Intel chipset. I have one on my MacBook and it makes thrusters look like razors cutting the back of their parent ships... :wtf:
Maybe I'm wrong, but in ever review I've seen both the Core2Duo and Quad blow away anything AMD has on the market right now.
In any case, I just bought a C2D 8400 3Ghz(OC'ed to 3.2) and it's running extremely well, infact my older C2D 6850 was very powerful in it's on right.
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Whatever you do, try not to get an Intel chipset. I have one on my MacBook and it makes thrusters look like razors cutting the back of their parent ships... :wtf:
Maybe I'm wrong, but in ever review I've seen both the Core2Duo and Quad blow away anything AMD has on the market right now.
... Keeping in mind that chipset (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipset) =/= processor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit).
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Can't forget chipset != onboard graphics.
Intel chipsets are the way to go unless you want SLI.
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Considering the overwhelming price and exhausting toll SLI systems have, I'd say get a P35 chipset. nVidias chipsets are god awful now.
/me nostalgically remembers his old AMD 8131 chipset and sheds a tear in mourning of better days past.
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cpu clock frequency is only one factor in a long equation that states how fast a cpu is. other things you must consider is how many floating point and integer units the chip has, how many instruction set extensions it has. other things like bus width and memory speed play a role too. not sure if anyone has an actual equation written down (if they do there are alot of factors). you cant say that clock speed is performance, but you can say that performance is proportional to clock speed.
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I'm on an Athlon X2 5600+ with 4gb of DDR2 800mhz Crucial SDRAM and a Radeon HD 4870. It runs perfectly for me, so beyond getting a quad-core processor I don't think you need anything more.
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I thought you got a new PC?
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Depends on your budget, If you got a lot of money to throw into a computer get an Intel, if not, get an AMD. Btw, Quadcore is not needed for todays games and such, I run an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ with an Asus GeForce 8600GT, and I can play any game at max graphics and never have the FPS dip below 55 on vsync or 100fps with vsync disabled. So unless your running a server, quadcore is a waste of money IMO.
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quad core is great if your a render artist though.
and a note on Vista.
the only real problems with vista (not driver stuff...) has to do with the way it handles users. as long as you keep it a single-user setup, you should be fine.
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What happens with multiple users?
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stupid security rules don't allow some programs write to their own directory. it's supposed to pause the program and ask for admin password or some-such but sometimes it causes the program to crash or simply complain.
it also has a stupid virtual user system that can cause all sorts of problems with older programs.
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If you do a lot of compiling, quad core is a blessing. I wish I had one to supercharge Gentoo.
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I'm on an Athlon X2 5600+ with 4gb of DDR2 800mhz Crucial SDRAM and a Radeon HD 4870. It runs perfectly for me, so beyond getting a quad-core processor I don't think you need anything more.
:yes:
That, I think, would be excellent for running games.
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Weird. When I use my 7600gs instead of the HD 4870, I can literally create a world record low 3dmark06 score. 2100 3dmarks for my system (with the 7600gs) is so far beyond abysmal that it makes me tear. Statistically, I should be getting three times that much. And this is on a new computer with good cooling and latest drivers, too!
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Weird. When I use my 7600gs instead of the HD 4870, I can literally create a world record low 3dmark06 score. 2100 3dmarks for my system (with the 7600gs) is so far beyond abysmal that it makes me tear. Statistically, I should be getting three times that much. And this is on a new computer with good cooling and latest drivers, too!
Obviously. The 7600GS is three years old and was a slow card even for its time. What were you expecting? :confused:
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My CPU score was ****, too.
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I get like 300 3DMarks. 300 PCMarks too.
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Hey all, firstly cheers for the help/advice from everyone.
Ive decided to go with a Core 2 Duo 3ghz and a p35/p45 motherboard. Not sure about the graphics yet, but am probably going to wait till ,my student loan is in and go wild :P Im tempted by the 4870, but have had problems in the past with ATi, so am still unsure.
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4870 is a good budget option, and the problems were probably old and an isolated incident.
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I've seen the 7600gs get 6000 3dmarks on a core 2 quad, oddly enough. My pcmark score is 5600 but my 3dmark score is 2200, so this seems weird to me.
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I get 6000 something 3Dmarks and I'm running
eVGA 8600GTS
AMD 4050e @ 2.00Ghz
2GB DDR2 @ 800Mhz
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I'd say E7200, Q6600, or Q9450 for processor.
A P45 motherboard is very good--I'd say Biostar TP45HP.
2x2GB DDR2 800 or DDR2 1000/1066.
HD4850 would be my graphics card recommendation.
Look at Corsair TX650 for power supply.
I'd also say Vista HP 64-bit.
Whatever you really want on hard drives--it's up to you there.
Cases are the same--it's up to you (personal preference).
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Q6600 is way too old, the 9 series is way better. Faster clocks, more cache, faster FSB...
And the 7 series is budget, the 8 series is the top end dual cores. Remember, he's got 4000$
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Q6600 is way too old, the 9 series is way better. Faster clocks, more cache, faster FSB...
And the 7 series is budget, the 8 series is the top end dual cores. Remember, he's got 4000$
WTH are you talking about?
1) I see no mention of a budget
2) The Q6600 is just fine, actually. Low price, 4 cores, 9x multiplier
3) Q9xx0 is a bit overpriced. Still 4 cores, but lower multipliers mean you're limited by RAM and motherboard for overclocking.
4) E7200 is very overclockable and very inexpensive--$120, making it a nice choice for dual-cores. E8x00 are fine too, but I wouldn't spend that much on a dual-core, personally
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Oops, wrong thread.
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Oops, wrong thread.
Yeah.... thought so.
Hey all, firstly cheers for the help/advice from everyone.
Ive decided to go with a Core 2 Duo 3ghz and a p35/p45 motherboard. Not sure about the graphics yet, but am probably going to wait till ,my student loan is in and go wild :P Im tempted by the 4870, but have had problems in the past with ATi, so am still unsure.
P45 > P35 by far.
The new HD3000 and HD4000 series graphics cards are fantastic price/performance cards. I'd say HD4850 is VERY nice.
Core 2 Duo is nice--but do still consider Core 2 Quad for AutoCAD. You may want to go with nVidia just for your CAD's hardware acceleration--I've never used it but I want to. AutoCAD 2007 got very slow in 3D.